


Before the Frost

by IoG



Series: Frost Flowering [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IoG/pseuds/IoG
Summary: A life untold is no less lived.  A love story between the lines.  (Or, meanwhile, back in the Reach.)





	Before the Frost

Mother died instantly doing something she loved.

 

That always seemed important, later. 

 

It was the only way her death made sense.  She was so vibrant, her sudden absence only amplified her presence.

 

Mother was ubiquitous from her earliest memories and her childhood was bright and warm for that fact.  Father was away, fighting the rebels during her most tender years.  Even once he returned, after the Targaryens, it was like he was absent.  He paced and thrashed all night and snoozed through the day.  So Lady Leonora continued to run the keep and the vineyards and saw to the smallfolk.  She accompanied Mother every day.

 

Mother filled the Lord and Lady’s roles.  She rode out to their lands, she inspected the crops, and she seemed to reveal in every minute of it.  Later, it dawned on her that Mother loved her, loved Father, loved their House, loved the horses, and loved their lands, and that Mother took all that love to power her through and fill up the hard parts.  Because, as Father emerged from the haze that set in after Robert’s Rebellion, Mother settled back into an easy partnership with him, ceding many of his duties back to him – but never stopped inspecting the grapes. 

 

And, as her father became Father, and not just the absent or distracted Lord, Mother and Father gave her siblings: Garen and Arabella.

 

And things were good.

 

But then, in the shining summer, it all suddenly changed. Mother’s horse startled and threw her.  It was just the will of the Gods that she hit a tree as she fell, and broke her neck.

 

And Mother, the constant in everything, was gone.

 

Father disappeared back into himself, returning to her earliest memories of him.  But Garen and Arabella had never seen him this way.  So she tried to be as Mother had been for her, and to fill up their whole lives.  She was two and ten after all.

 

She saw to Garen and Arabella’s education.  She inspected the vineyards.  She made sure the keep was kept in order.  She tried not to think about the hole in her world or the roots of sadness, always threatening to poke through grass.  There was far too much to do, than to think on her grief, anger, and guilt.

 

Three moons after Mother passed, it was raining and she just couldn’t get out of bed.  Garen was six years old and fought his lessons without her there.  Arabella had just celebrated her fourth nameday and cried if she was alone in the mornings.  Despite knowing all this, she couldn’t move.

 

She sent the maid away with a brief wave and buried herself under the blankets.  She started awake sometime later to find Father at her bedside.  It seemed odd to see him in her quarters.  It seemed even more strange to see him sitting, so focused on her, after months as if he were a ghost alongside Mother.

 

“Elin…” he began, and before long they were both crying. 

 

It was better after that. Mother may have been able to take on the role of Lord as well as Lady, but she couldn’t.  She looked after Garen and Arabella, but Father took time with them everyday.  And Father sat with her some nights, when she found sleep distant, and roused her on the mornings she wished to bury herself in the covers. Father would tell her about his courtship of Mother and they would reminisce over the good times when Garen and Arabella were babes. 

 

One such evening, as she neared six and ten, Father suggested a betrothal for her.  He was the eldest son of a noble family in Oldtown whose business was the sale of wine.  He was just under three years her junior, so the marriage would need to wait, but it was a good match that would bring much benefit to their house.  She met this boy, who might someday be her husband a few moons later and consented.  He was a squire and she liked to watch him care for the horses.  He had a kind hand.

 

And so, as summer slowly faded into autumn, things were good.   Some other Lords in the Reach suggested Father remarry, once a year for mourning had passed.  Father had only one son, and their House was of a good bloodline, with a distant and distaff, relation to the Gardner Kings. More importantly, they were wealthy, particularly after the fruitful harvests of the long summer.  No one in their household made any such recommendations.  They remembered Father after Mother’s death.  And so their family remained the four.

 

But then, King Robert died.  Father had not been grieved when they first heard the news – he had never fully forgiven the man his Rebellion – but if they knew what was to come, he would have.

 

On heels of the King’s death another war began.  House Tyrell called their banners, and men of the Reach rode out.

 

It was easier to take up the mantle left by his absence, than when she had in the immediate aftermath of Mother’s death.  She was older and more secure.  Garen and Arabella needed less tending.  But at night she fretted. She remembered the way Father had been after Robert’s Rebellion.  She wasn’t sure she could be as strong as Mother were he to return so altered again. 

 

She threw herself into Garen and Arabella’s educations.  The master had been increasingly concerned about Garen’s skills.  He had a good memory, and clearly was not afraid of hard work, but his reading was well below where it should be for an heir of a good house.  She sat with him for hours, reading seminal texts with him slowly, her finger following below the lines.  She had been an indifferent student and her septa had prepared her to be a lady, so in many cases, she was also experiencing these works for the first time as well.  She tried to hide from Garen how much she would rather be out in the vineyards.

 

It turned out that she needn’t have worried.  Father returned from first being a member of King Renly’s host, and then fighting to defeat Lord Stannis.  His shoulder was damaged and his mood subdued, but not subsumed into himself.  But the same could not be said for her betrothed – knighted in one battle, then dead in the next – or for Father’s dear friend, Lord Baeron. 

 

It turned out that it wasn’t Father’s reaction to the war, but Lord Baeron’s death that caused the greatest change in their lives.  The lord had married two years prior, and the union had not yet produced a child.  Without an heir, his wife went from the Lady of the keep, to just the widowed sister in law of the Lord.  Father and Lord Baeron had promised one another to look after each other’s families should they die in battle.  Which was how Lady Laerie arrived first for a visit, then betrothal, and finally a marriage.

 

It should have felt odd, this new woman in their home.  But, while Lady Laerie gladly took up the role of surrogate Mother for Garen and Arabella, where they allowed it, her new mother was kind and careful to treat her more as a trusted friend, perhaps an older cousin or an aunt.  She always assumed that if Father were to remarry, she would hate it.  But, if the gods’ willed it that the marriage would prevent Father’s disappearance into grief again, she tried to set aside her allegiance to Mother and welcome Lady Laerie.

 

Arabella had no memories of Mother, and sparkled with the attention of another adult.  Lady Laerie took on Arabella’s schooling alongside the running of the keep.  Meanwhile, she and Garen had established such a rhythm, it seemed unwise to disturb it.  There was more time, though, and she spent it outside soaking in the golden autumn sun and green grapes on the vine.

 

At first, she thought the afternoon teas and drinks in the solar after supper were for Lady Laerie’s benefit.  Her family and Lord Baeron’s fields had been of grain. She tutored the women in varitials and barrels. When she paused to breath or drink, Lady Laerie would turn the conversation to gossip: How the North has fully broken away from the Six Kingdoms, how she has heard the King wished to marry Lady Margaery, and then that the Lady was riding North to Riverrun, not South to the capitol.

 She began to realize this was more than idle gossip. When Lady Margaery married Lord Tully, Lady Laerie bade Father to set aside more of their funds for the future, divining threat in the nuptials, though she had see only a simple case of joining two houses in the announcement.

 

It was also Lady Laerie who had noted, two years after her arrival, that the period of mourning had passed and they really ought to look for a new betrothal on her behalf.  The good Lady helped Father begin to look for a Lord, though their ranks were depleted by two wars.  For all he had negotiated the first, she wondered if he had ever really accepted that she would leave.  They made little progress in the next two moons and then the terrible news about Lord Mace arrived.  It wouldn’t do to pursue a betrothal while the whole of the Reach was grieving.  

 

Lady Laerie said not to worry. All the Lords would need to swear allegiance to Lord Willas, and she would accompany Father.  The most eligible bachelors would be there.  And, three moons later the raven bearing the invitation that proved the Lady right arrived.

 

Highgarden was resplendent. She was unused to this many new faces – they had rarely hosted big events nor was Father one for much travel.  She tried to commit the new names and faces to the houses she had learned herself, and then drilled into Garen. But, she wasn’t completely naïve: she had been to Oldtown after all.  

 

This would all be easier if she liked to dance, she thought.  She of course partnered with every young man who asked, but her want of skill, and resulting lack of desire, left her waiting at some points, and she retreated to the adjoining library. Her eyes traced the spines and she wondered if Garen was staying on task with her absent.

 

A voice shook her out of her thoughts, “See something you wish to read, Lady Elin?”

 

“Lord Willas,” she greeted with surprise and slight curtsy. “Good evening.  I suspect that Maester Myrony’s “Treatise on the Targaryen Age” will be next.”  She fingered a book before her, her fingers almost acting on their own accord.

 

“Oh, not Maester Seren’s on the same?”

 

“I’m already reading the latter.  It’s certainly...long.”

 

He huffed a laugh. “Every third word is completely unneeded.”

 

“I’ve heard they’re important counterparts.” 

 

“Certainly. Each has deep weaknesses. One should not just rely on either alone. I think you’ll enjoy Myrony’s better. If only because its prose is tighter.”

 

“Good. If I read, ‘As I elucidated in the earlier chapters, it clear that...’ once more.”

“You know,” he bent close to relate a slightly scandalous tale, “Seren and Myrony wrote at the same time, and the story in Oldtown is that they despised one another.”

 

“And so, ironically, their names are forever linked.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

As they spoke, their first real interaction since the formal greeting on their arrival and Father’s oath, she realized he was younger than she had thought. His title and cane leant him a gravitas that his words relating the petty battles between long dead Maesters belied. Up close, his eyes twinkled and his fair face was unlined with age.

 

A variety of Ladies had flocked around the man at dinner and earlier in the evening, though their ranks had thinned substantially as soon as the musicians had turned their hands and voices to the tunes.  Most guests were making use of the floor, delighted by the chance for a ball after years without due to war and mourning, but she preferred to stand here.  She supposed Lord Willas didn’t dance due to his leg, but perhaps, like her, he also preferred conversation to awkward words meted out while one counted beats in their mind.

 

It was three days past that she realized their words may have been more than just a host seeing to his guests or occupying himself as others danced. A package with Maester Paerson’s seminal work, and a note that perhaps she might enjoy a work not beset by personal rivalries, arrived.  He enjoined her not to take offense if she had already read the book.  She had not.  To be honest, she had never even heard of the title. She typically kept to the canon Garen must know to be a proper Lord.  There was precious little enough time for pleasure, she wasn’t going to waste it with more reading when she might be outside.

 

He was, maybe, courting her. The Lord of Highgarden, of all people. And he thought she

was a scholar. This was a bit awkward. She had watched, with a touch of distain as prettier girls from ambitious houses had twittered at the eligible Lords.  They seemed to so skillfully trip through courtesies strung together like conversation.  Lady Laerie had tried to offer instructions on the art of attracting a proper match before she’d ridden out with Father, but it felt awkward, like a language she didn’t quite speak and had missed the age to learn. Those ladies would know how to pretend that they were of course bookish, as he seemed to want her to be, but not in an unattractive way.

 

She was invited to join him for a turn around the gardens at the warmest time of the day. They bundled up and before long she confessed she was perhaps not as well read as he thought.  Even as she spoke, she could hear Lady Laerie in her mind, bidding her to be quiet.

 

“Oh,” he enquired.

 

“Its not that I don’t enjoy reading, but it’s not among my chief pleasures. As befits an older sibling, I spend a good deal of time helping my siblings with their studies, which has left me very familiar with books set before a young lordling.”

  
He laughed at that, and related that his youngest brother, Ser Loras, was not found of reading in his youth.

 

“Then you are quite familiar with my situation.”

 

“It is, indeed, the curse of the eldest. What would be your chief pleasure, if not books?”

 

“I don’t want to be cloistered in the library.  I want to be in the fields seeing to our grapes.”

 

Last season had been stunning and she expected the wines to be incredible, once ready. She told him of overseeing the harvest, and the delightful laughs from the youngest to the most stooped with age as their feet created the mash.

 

She was pleasantly surprised to hear him match her excitement, but surely, she realized, the Lord Paramount of the South should know and love wine.

 

They spoke on the topic the remainder of their turns through the gardens.  She loved engaging with him on the way the grapes captured the essence of the Reach, and together, their family and bannermen distilled it for the future. She excitedly related their plans for ice wines until the snows of winter descended, and Lord Willas recalled fondly their sweet taste from his childhood’s winter. It was easy, in those moments, to forget his station.

 

She felt a measure of disappointment when it was time to return inside, and to begin preparations to return home the next day.  Upon their arrival, Garen and Arabella’s excitement at their return quickly pushed those feelings aside.

 

But, Lady Laerie pulled her into the solar as soon as the children were abed to grill her on potential suitors.  She related the dances with Lord Henrae and Ser Jamys first, protective of the walk as if the memory would pale on the retelling.  She then reached the moment when she could no longer spare the story. Of course, this was the interaction that drew Lady Laerie’s attention, and the minutest detail was requested, and interrogated.

Finally, the older woman looked her in the eye and asked, her tone even and undercutting the harsh words, “Do you mind he is a cripple?”

 

“No, it’s…no.”

 

That seemed to settle it.  No more was spoken on the topic for a few days, though she heard Father and Lady Laerie whispering in low tones that ceased the moment she entered the room.

 

Then the raven from Highgarden arrived. It’s contents were simple, a letter from Lord Willas that was more pleasantries than in depth discussion.  

 

But the subsequent letters were not. Four pairs of correspondence between the two keeps, and she was betrothed.

 

It all seemed so sudden, fewer than three moons and she was back at Highgarden, this time betrothed and to be wed in a week. When she had expressed hesitation with the speed before their departure, Lady Laerie had clucked at her that this was an excellent match and she should seek no delay, lest something tear it asunder.

 

“Neither of you need to wait for tender years. High Lords and Ladies marry for reasons beyond love.  There will be time for you two to build it.  But there is clearly a sufficient basis for cordial regard and affection. That will be enough.”

 

Then, her stepmother paused in packing her trousseau.  “I understand your hesitation. What you feel is what all women undergo, as we move from our family’s homes to our own.  The sudden change in place and status - a sharp break in our lives and our lives suddenly in another’s hands.  I felt it coming here as well, and I was a woman already wedded and bedded.  Even among the excitement was a valid frisson of fear.”  Lady Laerie patted the bed beside her.

 

“I remember meeting you - a girl and woman simultaneously. You impressed me so much. I had worried, before we met, that we might be antagonists. But you made me feel at home.  That openness is why I believe your fear is unfounded. You’ll build a new home with Lord Willas.”

 

“I’ve told you that this is a good match. Clearly for reason of position it could be naught else. But more than that, once you dig through the voices who speak ill of him for reasons of his infirmity and weakness of character they presume follows weakness in form, he is said to be kind and intelligent. I believe he will make you a fitting husband.”

 

Lady Laerie concluded, “It hard to be a woman without a husband. I should not like to see you lose one I think will be a good match merely because of nerves.”

 

It was all sensible, and she reminded herself she had barely met the boy to whom she had been betrothed before.  But that match had always seemed so far in the future, with much time to build a relationship before she stood in front of the Septon.  

 

For all of Lady Laerie’s words, she still felt confused by the speed. Lord Willas was not in want of an heir, having two brothers, one of whom had a son of his own. The Reach need not worry over issues of succession.  Moreover, for all there was affection, this was not a love match; they were the epitome of a traditional marriage.  Lord Willas has been unmarried for years, why rush into that which his family could have secured with any number of similar ladies of her station during the past decade?

 

It was a rude comment by her future good grandmother that brought comfort on that front, in the end.  Four days before the wedding, as they bent over their embroidery, Lady Olenna opined, “I suppose you’ll do. Certainly better than the titchy Lannister Princess.”

 

“Princess Myrcella?” She questioned in surprise.  “She’s just a girl, surely not of age to marry?”

 

Lady Olenna harrumphed, “As if that would restrain Lord Tywin if he saw benefit to his House.”

 

“I suppose, having failed to match Lady Margaery with his grandson, he sought an alternative alliance.”

 

Lady Olenna’s eyebrow rose at her comment and she swallowed hard at the rumor she had repeated.  That may have been very poorly done. But, the older woman inclined her head in an acknowledging nod.

 

It was two days before the wedding when they had time for private discussion, again in the gardens while a chaperone observed from the terrace above.  It was even colder than it had been during their prior walk. Lord Willas’s movements seemed tightly controlled and purposeful. She glimpsed his grimace out of the corner of her eye. 

 

He had admonished her to call him Willas and she had agreed.  Their conversation mostly revolved around their family’s interactions.  They were awkward with one another - still mostly strangers, but soon to be the most intimate of pairs. Suddenly, he froze, gripping his thigh, while forcing a stream of air between two clenched teeth.

 

After a moment she took his arm and led them to bench.  He rested in silence, with his cheeks pinking in shame, before interjecting, “I apologize. I imagine, that’s not the sort of display to comfort you as to the match you’ve made. I’ll endeavor to avoid such behavior on our wedding day.”

 

This was certainly not a topic they had discussed.  He wasn’t quite meeting her eyes.  She reached out to tip his chin up, and, let her thumb rub along his jaw.

 

“It grieves me that it pains you. But, I don’t worry on it otherwise.”

 

Something in the set of his mouth suggested he did not believe her words.  She had heard ladies ply him with courtesies in one moment, and cluck at this infirmity upon his departure.  It was not surprising he distrusted her attempts at comfort. So, before he could brush it away, she confessed.

 

“In the depths of my heart, there is a part of me that is glad of it. Not the pain or the frustrations it forces you to endure, but what it means for our life together moving forward.  You shall never have to ride out with your bannermen. Perhaps it marks me as lacking bravery, but the Reach has fought for three Kings in my lifetime. I’ve watched my father leave and feared deeply for him.  I’ve waited for the scars of the battlefield, both of the body and the soul, to heal.  We are still new to one another, but I know enough of you that I wish to spare you, and myself, such fear and loss.”

 

“Elin,” he said, a touch chastising, and she drunk in the sound of her name on his

tongue.  “I hate that I might send men out to die and not ever be able to fight alongside them. That people may suffer while I cannot act.”

 

“I know, because you are a good man – brave and kind. I won’t tell you not to feel that way, as I’m sure my words would have not impact. Perhaps, your concerns that you cannot fight alongside may stay your hand, and lead you to wiser decisions? But, banish your concerns about my feelings on this topic.”

 

The next day, as she pledged, “Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger, I am his and he is mine,” she thought on those moments in the garden and smiled.

 

But, settling into Highgarden took more than she expected. She was used to running a keep, but Highgarden was an order of magnitude larger. She had more help, but the demands on her time outstripped the assistance. She regularly reminded herself that this was the first time she had lived away from home. Of course it would feel harder and more lonely. She missed Father and Lady Laerie, Garen and Arabella, and everyone who had known her since she was a girl.

 

So much of her attention was on the daily lists of tasks to do as she tried to establish a rhythm. Wake at this hour, break fast, and see to the ladies. Then move to the ledgers, and so on. Her time was full, but sometimes the keep felt so empty. And she was tired with a malaise that had set in weeks before and she seemed unable to break. Moons into her marriage, Garlan came for a visit, upsetting the tenuous hold she had established. There was no reason for it, he wasn’t some honored guest to whom improper procedure would cause great offense.

 

But, she and Willas had established a rhythm of physical proximity, if not emotional closeness. They often saw to their correspondence together in the hours before supper. She liked that time, sitting together in the silence. Sometimes she would comment on the letters he received and he would in return. But today he was nowhere to be found. She headed toward the small library where her husband and his brother had been the day before, when she heard their voices.

 

As she approached she heard her good brother ask, “I know you were in love with…? Are you still?”

 

Upon Willas’ abortive, “I…” she fled. She had been unable to make out the name of his lost love, but there were no soft sibilant sounds in Elin.

 

She returned to their room, and gave into the exhaustion that had been nipping at the back of her mind for weeks.

 

Willas loved someone else. Not her. Perhaps that was the problem, why Highgarden still didn’t feel like home. Why he could have been a treasured colleague and not her husband.

 

Rather than think on these ideas further, she surrendered to sleep.

 

She awoke to her husband entering the room.

 

“Are you well?” He asked in a voice quiet and concerned.

 

She meant to make an excuse, not to have this conversation while she lay prone with her hair a mess, but the words broke out of her, “Who is she, the woman you love?”

 

Willas looked shocked, “Elin…” he began.

 

“I heard Garlan talking when I went to look for you.” She supposed that was rather self-explanatory, but with her mind still fuzzy with sleep there was to be no dissembling.

 

He perched at the end of the bed and looked down for a moment. “Before I met you, there was a woman for whom I had a great affection. There could be no match between us. It’s a thing of the past.”

 

“But you loved her. You still perhaps do?”

 

“I still…have affection towards her. But it is different. It has been a long time since we wrote, let alone saw each other. And I am happily married to you.”

 

“Are there any children?” This thought had refused to leave her mind since she overheard Garlan’s. What if there was a babe?   He had been a man in the world for so many years before they were joined. It would not be unexpected, but the mere thought made her chest tighten uncomfortably.

 

“No, no. There was never such a relationship.” He grasped her hands. “There are no children but those we will share.

 

Willas gazed down at their hands. And is he mine, she wondered?

 

“I feel like I don’t know who you are.” She confessed. “That I am familiar with the lord, and perhaps even the man, but not who you are as a husband.”

 

He opened his mouth to respond, but the knock at the door interrupted them both.

 

“My Lord, My Lady, supper is set.”

 

She used the distraction to rise from bed and fix her gown. “I’ll need just a moment to set my hair. Feel free to head down without me.”

 

She would have thought dinner would have been tense, but it felt little different from usual. She retired early and was settling into bed when a knock at the door interrupted her ministrations.

 

It was Willas.

 

“I could stay elsewhere tonight,” he offered.

 

“No no, this is your bed as well. Besides, I can hardly complain we are insufficiently close and also bar the door against your entry.”

 

He moved through his preparations silently, and soon was beside her in the darkened chamber.

 

They lay in the heavy silence, and for all that tiredness had seemed heavy in her bones recently, sleep didn’t come.

 

Suddenly, Willas began to speak quietly, the tone quiet, but she could feel it rumble beside her.

 

“I didn’t mean to fall in love, before. I hadn’t really thought that was action I might ever take. Clearly a marriage would follow at some point. Perfunctory for this position.”

 

She froze at his world. Anything said in this hour and place carried intimacy. But this was more than she thought he’d ever shared.

 

“I suppose I knew it could never be. Perhaps that’s why I allowed a beautiful woman’s care and attention to open my heart. It couldn’t be dashed by her, for it was doomed by forces greater than fleeting passions or physical frailties.

 

“I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt, once it necessarily ran its course. And if you’d ask me before, if I might have avoided such pain, before it all began, I would have of course told you that I know pain enough to avoid asking for more.

 

“But I would have been wrong. She provided guidance in a tough time, but more than that, she taught me what that kind of love be, and what it might grant. I want that for us.”

 

“I do as well.” He started at her words. But this was her chance. She wanted more. What had Father and Mother had had.

 

“Are we perfunctory? We feel it.”

 

“I’m sorry. I haven’t been a good husband. I’ve still be so focused on filling Father’s place as a good Lord, on trying to be a good man, and the seemingly have failed my other duties.”

 

“Why me? Almost any unmarried Lady in the Reach could be here in your bed.” If he had chosen her for a reason, maybe, they could be something real.

 

Willas paused, gathering his thoughts, she hoped, and not groping for an answer.

 

“You seemed straightforward in way that make a good partner. You were said to be competent in way that would make a good Lady of Highgarden. You spoke of your siblings with such love in a way that would make a good mother. When you spoke of your vineyards, your eyes shone and you smiled like the sun. And I thought, and I was right, that I wanted more than just some suitable woman, but you. That we could build something great together.”

 

“Then tell me that. And everything else. I didn’t know any of that, I don’t know you.”

 

“I will, but do the same.”

 

They let the words they shared settled into the covers, and perhaps that could have been all that passed, but remembered the moment of freedom when she had asked him this afternoon about the conversation she overheard. And then, of telling him, only months ago before courtship or marriage that he misapprehended her.”

 

“I miss home, sometimes. I know this is home, now. But it doesn’t always feel it.”

 

It was another hour before she settled into sleep, but it was better that it had been in weeks.

 

The next day she napped again, to dispel the exhaustion their late conversations engendered.

 

When they settled in, she asked, “Why did Garlan come?”

 

Willas was silent.

 

“Please, I don’t need to know the specifics, just, I know you’re close, yet his visit makes you seem tense.”

 

“There bad news out of King’s Landing.”  


“Oh, I hadn’t heard.”

 

“It’s shant affect the Reach. It will really only touch the smallfolk of the Riverlands. Why you haven’t heard I suspect. Just, the King spends profligately, but that’s not new. The King displays little aptitude for rule, but this is not a change. He has sent soldiers out to address a force of men called the Brotherhood. It seems this has done little to enforce order, but just wrecked further chaos in lands that need it not.

 

“I asked Garlan to come and discuss it.”

 

His words were harsh. Some might call them treasonous. She felt a hot cold flash of fear, but tried not to show it. She’d asked. She’d wanted this.

 

“What will you do? Will we do?”

 

“Nothing…for now.”

 

“What does the King wish us to do?”

 

“He has asked naught of us.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“I must wait. People are hurt and I must wait, because there are plans better served by inaction. Better to let the King do as he wishes now, then risk destabilizing him now.

 

“But people will be hurt, and die in the interim, and there’s an easy way to reduce that, but it’s the wrong course for the long term and I wanted Garlan to remind me why we have chosen the path we pursue.”

 

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand, I don’t need to know, specifically, but I’m sorry. We’re still finding how we fit together, who we are, but I have no doubt, and never have, that you are a good man who makes the best choices you can.”

 

His breath shuddered at that and she could tell he had said all he would share. As sleep seemed far away, she began to whisper stories as she might have told Arabella and Garen to chase away a nightmare.

 

And so, while Willas slept poorly as long as she’d known him, it seemed that now, in sharing more of a marriage with him, she did as well.   Her midday naps continued fore the remaining forenight, at which point she was summoned by the Maester.

 

That night, she and Willas both seemed eager for bed.

 

“I have news she told him, once they lied prone, as if their verticality stripped them of their pretenses.”

 

“I do as well.”

 

“I am with child.”

 

Usually they lay still beside one another. Afraid to disrupt the speaker, no matter the words shared. But at this, Willas turned to her, and, his voice pregnant with emotion asked, “Truly.”

 

She nodded, which he couldn’t see of course, and decided to kiss him soundly instead. He rubbed a hand across her belly, which appeared as of yet unchanged, unlike her breasts, she realized.

 

He seemed so happy, and she couldn’t help but smile. They spoke for hours.

 

She had almost drifted off when she realized, that he had news as well.

 

“Willas, what did you mean to share?”

 

He exhaled, long and hard. “A raven arrived today. The whole realm will know soon. Targaryens and their dragons have returned to Westeros. Queen Danaerys landed at Dragonstone.

 

As her babe grew, so to did the shadow the dragons cast across the Westeros. It was whispered about in the halls of Highgarden, and emissaries from houses throughout the Reach appeared to address this issue with Willas. Ravens from King’s Landing began to arrive as well.

 

By day, Willas seemed distracted and stressed whenever his mind turned to work. She would try and distract him, with talk of the coming harvest and their coming babe. She counted a win when she netted a smile and he ducked her errant hair behind her ear.

 

At night, he’d tell her what came to pass and ask about her day. Laying down was no longer the most comfortable position she might find herself in, but it remained the hour she anticipated the most.

 

That night, Willas told her, hand knotted in the covers, “The King called our banners.”

 

She couldn’t muffle the sharp intake of breath at his words.

 

“And?” she asked him.

 

“No. We will not be coming to Joffrey’s aid.”

 

“But he’s the King.”

 

“House Tyrell and the Reach will declare for Queen Daenerys. Whether or nor he’s the legitimate ruler – and I think not – he is a bad ruler, and his grandfather has done little to recommend bolstering Lannister power. Tywin tried to take the Seven Kingdoms and entrench lions as the permanent principal. Perhaps he felt House Tyrell nipping at his heels. We could have abided by that, but instead of establishing order, his fool grandson built on King Robert’s failures and further weakened the realm. But for our forces, it would have collapsed into civil war. Baratheon against ‘Baratheon.’”

 

“But, isn’t this civil war as well?”

 

“Joffrey can’t sustain it. Perhaps Tywin would have achieved his aims if he had a pliable puppet, like the younger son Tommen, but there’s too much rot. The dragons will make quick work of it. And hopefully, we can return to regular order.”

 

She exhaled in understanding. “Its hard to farm and trade in a time of war.”

 

“Exactly. And a quick defeat is better for us all. You know, as well as I do, that the more men in the fields than on, the better off we are.”

 

“So we wait?”

 

“So we wait. Queen Daenerys knows she has our loyalty and knows she needs our grain. We hope that our patience and earlier forbearance means much less will be needed now.”

 

She squeezed his hand, and lay in silence. None of the Reach were needed to fight. Father and Willas and Garlan would all be safe. Good, it was good.

 

“I think,” she said, “we’ll have peace in the Kingdom before the babe comes.”

 

“I hope so.”

 

“And I know, it will be in part because of you, making it safe for our son or daughter.”

 

“Elin,” for all the steady patter of his explanation before, his words sounded strangled by his fears.

 

“You’ll be a good father, and I’ll be a good mother, and our child will be so loved. You know the politics and I know this.”

 

His exhalation suggested some agreement. She hoped so, for sleep descended quickly after.

 

Finally declaring the Reach for the Targaryen’s seemed to have sapped Willas’ anxiety, he slept more soundly and smiled brighter. He seemed enthralled by her hair and changing body. She thrilled at the closeness for which she had yearned.

 

But, as her belly grew, an uneasy feeling expanded inside it. She confessed one unremarkable evening.

 

“I think I’ll be good mother.” She had raised Garen and Arabella and by all accounts done a fine job.

 

His voice rumbled full and low in agreement. It tempered the chill inside her a moment, but she continued on.

 

“I don’t fear the act of being a mother, but what if something happens and I am not here? Mother didn’t mean to leave, and yet she did.” Her voice was high and tight with the words, as if it could prevent them from escaping.

 

The worst thing she could imagine doing to this small child within her was to leave, to punch a hole in its world the way Mother’s death had for her.

 

Willas awkwardly threaded an arm beneath her body and puller her tight. “I can’t promise you that won’t happen, I can only ask it of the gods. But you are healthy, young, and strong.” He breathed in time with her a moment. “That’s little comfort, but it’s the truth. I am sure your Mother would have fought be with you with every fiber of her being, and I know, Seven forbid, you’d do the same. But, even if the most terrible thing happened, and the Stranger took you too soon, our child would be safe, and happy, and loved. I promise you. I would make sure of it. And if neither of us were here, Mother, or Garlan and Leonette, would raise him or her happy and healthy. I know it.”

 

She released a shuddering breath. “I doubt none of that, but I worry nonetheless.”

 

He kissed her temple. “I suppose that’s parenthood. I worry constantly, which I know you are intimately familiar with.”

 

“Perhaps it makes us well matched.” She supposed she felt better. There was nothing Willas could do to prevent her fears, but at least now she might settle for the night.

 

She wiggled his arm out from underneath her – it was a kind and very uncomfortable. He made a sound of amusement and moved his hand to her dark hair, the big fingers carding it until she fell asleep.

 

A forenight later, they were seated in the solar, Willas seeing to correspondence while she put the finishing touches on a Tyrell green baby hat, the ties of the bonnet spilling over her bulging stomach. He set down his paper and turned to face her.

 

“I want to speak to you of something important.”

 

She must have looked surprised. They still seemed to confine important conversations to those moments under the covers.

 

“I don’t want to take this to our bed.” He looked a combination of ashamed, defiant, scared, and tired. For a moment her mind flashed toward Garen and she could see the little boy in her husband.

 

She gestured that he continue.

 

“There’s been bad news.”

 

“From the front?” She was terrified, at times, of the dragons and foreign forces marching forward.

 

“No, from the North.”

 

“What?” The North had been a non-entity since it have forced itself outside the realm of the Seven Kingdoms.

 

“They claim a supernatural enemy marches toward them – and the rest of Westeros.”

 

“And you believe them?”

 

“More than just one raven has attested to the fact. Their armies are marching to the Wall. If I haven’t gone North, perhaps I would have thought they were fools, or playing some sort of game. But, no – I suspect its true. We have dragons in the South, why not ice creatures in the North.” He shook his head.

 

“They want for aid, but we can’t provide it. Our men are needed in the fields, and, perhaps, to shore up Queen Daenerys’ forces.”

 

“So, you wish to ignore the request?” She couldn’t understand where this was deriving from. Why did Willas look like he expected to be chastened?

 

“For the most part. Just like before, I can’t give the protection these people need. And many will die, because the long term calculus is the same: leave Joffrey to wreck havoc, and have a easier path for the new Queen; remain here, with our forces farming and ready to take up arms as needed, and establish the peace over the Six Kingdoms we need for winter.”   Willas’s face crumpled at the thought.

 

“But, it doesn’t have to be all the same,” he continued. “I may be constrained on a large scale, but we could provide the most minor of succor – with your permission.”

 

She quirked her eyebrows in confusion, and Willas sped ahead, words tumbling out more quickly.

 

“We spoke, you know, of the woman who came before you. I told you I had not been in contact with her, and that remains true. But I couldn’t restrain or otherwise dispose of Joffrey, and whether or not I believe the North about the coming threat, I can’t send forces at this time. But I could offer her a place of refuge. And maybe that has to be enough?” His eyes were fixed at the floor, and he dragged them up to meet hers.

 

“But not without your permission. This isn’t me seeking a love I lost, I am happy with us, or wanting more, you and the babe are all I could dream of, though I know why you might think so. Its just, this is one small thing I can do, instead just continuing to pretend we are separate and safe. I can at least offer protection to someone who is important to me, who comforted me when Father passed and encouraged me to open myself up for the kind of love we have found. Just a little step, safety for two: her and her youngest brother. Garlan said he’d house them at Brightwater. I just, I need to do something.”

 

She was so taken aback by his words no response emerged. He fumbled that she didn’t need to answer now, and she stuttered through a statement that she’d think upon his request, and excused herself to find the chamberpot. Technically she wasn’t fleeing the conversation. She did need to go at all times now.

 

She perseverated on the conversation for the rest of the day. She didn’t even know the woman’s name. When her existence was first mentioned, she was livid and jealous and devastated – but that had all faded with their increasing closeness and with the babe. She hadn’t thought about Garlan’s words for months.

 

They had seemed devastating at the time, but overhearing that conversation was one of the best things that could have happened. It led her here, lying in bed, awake beside her husband, whom she loved as, and not just for that title – let alone the title of Lord. She could feel their babe kick, a little girl or boy who would be joining their lives soon. And she thought, entering into a union of love.

 

This woman would have none of this. If her safety and that of her brother, who bore a striking resemblance to Garen in her mind, gave Willas a measure of peace, so be it.

 

She laboriously sat up and shook his shoulder. He roused from sleep with a start.

 

“Yes, you should write to offer her a place at Garlan’s.”

 

“You’re sure? You don’t mind?”

 

“I trust you. Besides, I suppose I should thank her, for preparing you for me.”

 

He leaned up and kissed her sweetly.

 

“Speaking of preparation, your son or daughter has been very active this evening. It’ll be soon. We need to pick a name.”

 

They continued to retread old arguments, but the conversation felt playful and joyous. She ultimately succeed in convincing him away from Baelor, and in the early hours they settled back into a pleasant sleep together, his hand wide across her belly. They were good and she was happy.

 

She’d always assumed that when death came for her it would be like Mother’s. Swift - the blinking out of a life in between one moment and the next. And surely, each spasm of pain earlier that day felt like it could have ended her in such a way. Then the baby had cried out, and it faded away – distant and unimportant. Now, time had gone languid. The Maester was very worried and she felt the blood soaking her shift.  As she gazed down, she realized must die, for surely there was no blood left inside.  

 

They brought Willas into the room.  He held their daughter, little Aelinor. She looked perfect.  The babe was so small, he could hold their daughter with one arm and her own hand simultaneously.

 

She was tired.  Her mind felt free of her body, as if floating in the air.  She tried to tell him all he should share with their little girl, when she was older than mere hours. She left messages for Father and Lady Laerie, for Garen and Arabella.

 

He implored her to hold on, that he and Aelinor needed her. She told him she would if she could, and to tell Aelinor that. She had always taken comfort in her steadfast knowledge that Mother would have been there if it had at all been in her power.

She chastised him not to left Aelinor take on the role of Lady of the Reach or make Aelinor his entire world. She looked at the babe before her and desperately wanted her to be a happy child, unburden with worries of Willas’s health or mind, or the status of their Kingdom.

 

“Promise me.”  

 

He did. 

 

His hand was all she had to tether her, as if she were flying about the room. She focused for a moment on his words. He was telling her of his plans for Highgarden’s vineyards when summer returned. He was describing in rich detail the taut skin of the grape that would give way beneath their feet, and the way he might use his cane to pop the swollen fruit. She laughed at the image his face shone like the sun at the sound. She supposed she had grown silent, in the moments, minutes, or hours before.

 

“Willas,” she needed to tell him something as well, she had nearly forgotten in her effort to impart messages for the many who were not there or would not remember the moment.

 

“Willas. I love you.”

 

“I know. And I love you, Elin. So much.”

 

“I’m tired.” She told him. It was so true. Her eyes felt so heavy. Suddenly, she felt all her body, returned from the air above it.  “It hurts.” 

 

It did.  Every part radiated pain, ice cold and wet, like the bed.

 

Aelinor had started fussing and she grimaced at the sound. She couldn’t make it better for her daughter, couldn’t move at all to soothe the crying babe.

 

“Shhhh,” he comforted them both.  “Shhh.”

 

Then, his hand released hers and ghosted across her face.

 

“It’s ok. I know it hurts and you’re tired. Go to sleep.”

 

Aelinor cried out, and her faced contorted at the sound.

 

“I’ve got her, I’ve got her.”  His voice was hoarse. “Shhhh.  Just let your eyes close. You did everything you could for her.”

 

“I love you. I love both my girls.”

 

He started to sing. It was a lullaby she recognized. Mother had sung it to her, and she had muddled through it for Arabella, though she was never very musical. He was unpracticed, but not untalented at the words.

 

It was a nice tune, but it was fading out.

**Author's Note:**

> I always knew when I was writing Frost Flowering that Willas would be married and lose his wife to childbirth. However, I desperately didn't want to contribute to the "Lady Stark - She's dead" phenomenon of unnamed women dying in childbirth, hence a one shot no one asked for about an original character. I hope it was able to present a fully formed woman with her own life who was more than just a road block to another couple. Thanks for reading!


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